The Decline and Fall of America’s Middle Class

After falling steadily since the 1960s, America’s standard of living is on the verge of collapse. This statement may seem counterintuitive, considering all of the pleasures so many of us enjoy: 50-inch TV screens and fabulous electronic gizmos that put a world of knowledge and entertainment at our instant command; Kobe beef hamburgers seasoned with pink Himalayan salt; battery-powered luxury cars that accelerate from zero to 60 in under four seconds; photo safaris in the Serengeti  and  vacation cruises to the fjords of Norway and the Galapagos Islands; graphite-frame mountain bike and kayaks, bulletproof tuxedos and down parkas that can keep us warm at minus 30 degrees.  What king or emperor ever enjoyed such easy and complete command of his environment?

And yet, despite this impressive list of amenities, the things that truly matter have slipped beyond the reach of the broad middle class. Stay-at-home moms have become a relative rarity, early retirement for private-sector employees a  financial impossibility.  First-class health care is now reserved for the few who can afford concierge care; four-year private colleges, for the sons and daughters of households able and willing to take on six-figure debt.  We buy most of our “stuff” at warehouses rather than at department stores.

Air-Travel Cattle

Nowhere is the decline in our standard of living more obvious and infuriating than in public transportation.  Sixty years ago, the average passenger train offered a level of luxury that by today’s standards would befit a pasha. Linen tablecloths, sterling silver and Spode china were routine dining-car fare for all travelers. Today, such cars and the full menus they offered have been replaced by vendors who will sell us a slice of processed cheese on stale bread for $10.  Air travelers have fared far worse, crammed into seats so tight that one cannot even open a newspaper or recline in comfort.  More recently, air passengers have taken on the role of baggage handlers. Still worse is that they are being charged as much as $35 for the privilege of hauling their own luggage and storing it in overhead bins.  As a result, boarding a plane has become an ordeal, a herding process that can take the better part of an hour. If America is so wealthy, as we keep hearing ad nauseum, than why are public amenities so squalid? And why can’t households with two professional incomes afford to put their kids through college without borrowing heavily against their homes?

The stark truth that follows from the observations above is that, even after going deeply into hock, most Americans can no longer afford many of the things that the middle class took for granted until relatively recently. How could this have happened?  Are the banksters to blame for lending us into an inescapable condition of indentured servitude? Did the Guvvamint trick us by inflating assets while devaluing labor and saving?  Were we seduced by bread and circuses to overlook the erosion of the American Dream?  These are the questions I ask you, dear readers, to consider this week.

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  • bc August 20, 2013, 7:09 am

    I never bought into the “Evil Bastard” theory of our government or in hidden evil elites running everything from behind a curtain. But lately I’ve had to reconsider. I mean the way they went after Glenn Greenwald’s family is just sickening. Evil really does exist and it’s baring its teeth these days.

  • John Jay August 19, 2013, 6:44 am

    Gary,
    I will engage in a little speculation here but I believe before the Vietnam war took flight under LBJ, Bell helicopter was almost bankrupt, then wham, Huey production went through the roof. Brown & Root made a fortune building bases for the Vietnam war.
    And I am sure someone else made a fortune supplying jet fuel for all the air ops.
    I am not certain, but I believe Bell and Brown and Root were based in Texas, lots of oil from Texas for jet fuel.
    LBJ had lots of Texas Big Business pals I believe.

    As far as changing the Immigration Laws, here is the link again that shows LBJ and McCarran of Nevada were pushing for Open Borders for cheap labor for their rancher pals in the South West back in the 1950s!
    Link:http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0706/p09s01-coop.html
    Eisenhower ignored the pressure and stopped Illegal Immigration cold, until LBJ came to power.
    Ask yourself why, out of the blue in 1965 was it necessary to open the flood gates to millions of immigrants.
    To me, it was obvious the long range plan was to:
    A) Flood the labor market to keep wages down.
    B) Flood the Electorate with new Democrat voters.

    All the sudden interest in Civil Rights was the same deal,
    LBJ said “Blacks will be voting Democrat for the next 200 years.
    Google it.
    “If Civil Rights act leads to a single quota, I’ll eat my hat.”
    That was from Hubert Humphrey.
    Google it.
    In my opinion the FBI shut down the Klan and the Mafia to clear the decks for the Federal Government to gain complete control at the local level.
    I am not saying it did not need to happen, I am questioning the motivation of the Government.
    I am no Klan fan, but, as someone on this forum pointed out, LBJ sent more young Black and Hispanic men to be slaughtered and maimed in Vietnam than the Klan ever dreamed of.
    That fact is completely ignored by the MSM to this day.
    I remember Look or Life publishing photos of a months worth of KIA in Vietnam, heavily Black and Hispanic.
    So much for the LBJ compassion for the down trodden.

    Anyway, Gary, we are all just poking the corpse of the USA with a stick, it’s done for as far as I can see.
    I see a ruthless agenda having played out over 50 years, and I find it hard to believe that it was just “Bad Luck” that looted this country so thoroughly.
    It was Big Business taking over the Federal Government to the point that now the DOJ just says, “Oh well, the Big Banks can’t be held to account, that would be dangerous.”
    It’s over.

  • mava August 18, 2013, 7:39 pm

    Gary, I can happily tell you that as of very recent date, my investment in US is precisely zero, and so is my owned property in US. I am living a pretty prudent life lately, even if I am unable to behave correctly every time, I am doing much, much better of the discipline front than before, now that I am all the way in on my preparations for the collapse.

    That should pretty much answer your questions.
    ======================

    As for the discussion we are having:

    The mechanism of printing money can therefore be viewed as a powerful transfer vehicle. It transfers purchasing power from the owners of the existing dollars, to the printers of the new dollars.

    With that said, we can step back and take a look at the bigger picture, forgetting for a moment about the details of operation.

    What you must see then is this giant transfer channel setup, and through it, there are trillions dollars of purchasing power are being sucked out of the pockets of people who actually produce something, and into the hands of the government people.

    What is government spending? It is a 100% waste. Thus you should see that this transfer channel is actually destroying trillion dollars of wealth yearly.

    Can our economy continue to operate like this?

    Consider your car. Every engine has friction losses. They are parasitic, complete waste transfer of kinetic energy into potential energy of heat, which is then dissipated into the environment. It is true, that there are bacteria living right on the crankcase of the engine, that feeds on that heat. So, the energy lost to heat is used up by the bacteria.

    Now, lets change the ration between the energy sent to the wheels and energy consumed t transfer to heat and wasted on bacteria and environment. Lets waste a lot more than before.

    You will notice that your car doesn’t run as well for the same gas you put into it, same road and same tires. It now barely moves. This is where the US is today. Too much of the productive energy of this entire country is wasted on the transfer to the government – 100% waste.
    True, the bacteria down there on the crankcase has the best time ever. But it is still a waste, because the bacteria is a parasite.

    Now, for the future. Because this transfer of energy to heat, it not only wastes the energy, it also works to change the operating conditions of the vehicle. The parasitic bacteria will grow ans cover the engine with oily looking layer, isolating it from the outside air, thus preventing the cooling. It will literally suffocate the engine.

    The heat will also remove the lubricants (destroy free markets), and ruin gaskets and seals (introduce corruption). Which is to say, that the it will make for the deteriorating conditions. The transfer to waste will keep increasing.

    There will be a day when the remaining energy is less than is required by the engine to go-on. At that point, the engine will stall forever with or without instant damage (revolution).

    The parasitic organism will die, as soon as the engine is dead and there is no more excess heat. The point is however, that even though the government is self – destined to die, it will destroy the host, it will absolutely positively do everything it can to do so.

    These things happen again and again in every country. It is a lucky coincidence for the parasitic class, that the people as a whole are incapable of seeing this process. Not only they can not see the parasitic governments suffocating the county, they can not even see such simple mechanisms as inflation.

    In the US, arguably on of the most educated nations on the planet, more then half of the people believe that “some inflation is necessary” (simply, because they are too dim to be comfortable challenging the FED on their proposition that 2% inflation is necessary).

    But, there can be an infinite ways to introduce parasitic losses to the system. Inflation is only a recent invention, and it could be swapped for some other method of theft.

    Therefore, I believe that the situation is without hope. As people, we are simply not intelligent enough to make our lives without recurrence of catastrophic events, that we record in history under various names, but that all have the same cause – the economic collapse due to delayed reaction to excessive waste.

    I, therefore, prepare.
    Others, are free to proclaim the new plateau, just as the famous idiot, Irving Fisher did proclaimed right on the cusp of the great depression.

    • RickJ August 23, 2013, 4:37 am

      Mava; I agree, and to expand on your transfer vehicle idea regarding the money printing, I would add the derivatives, the new super money for the banksters only that have trump card status over other claims by peons not members of the club. The derivatives, in my opinion, syphon off the profits that would otherwise be made in junior mining stocks and perhaps all stocks to at least some degree.

  • gary leibowitz August 18, 2013, 3:56 am

    So while it is so obvious we all live in dire times I have to ask each one of you to answer this list of questions.

    1 – Household monthly income
    2 – Household monthly debt
    3 – Percentage of discretionary money
    4 – Live in a house or rent
    5 – Working and if so has your hours increased over the last 10 years
    6 – Savings

    I ask because you must be the hidden poor I keep hearing lament over how it “used to be”. Surely you must have a bunker style shelter stocked with water and food to last out the next 5 or so Armageddon years. No entertainment of any kind? No eating out, movies, theater, hobbies. Of course not. You must be spending all your time and energy developing a plan to survive the next holocaust.

    Please take stock of what you currently have for that is the only reality you can live by. If you have insisted for the last decade the world is coming to an end how did that serve you so far? Live for the now. Can anyone really prepare for the unpredictable? Even if you know deep problems are sure to develop, you don’t know when or how if will occur, nor how it will affect your life.
    Prepare for a troubles future is one thing, to live in fear and anger over something that didn’t happen yet makes your life less fulfilling than the ignorant slob that gets caught unprepared.

    Never mind, carry on! I wish Rick would pick a random article from at least one year ago, re-post it here with all the responses. There have been so many events in our past 4 years that resulted in dire forecasts that I wonder why no one questions their own impulsive mistakes. Wrong for 4 plus years. You can’t justify being wrong with the free pass of “manipulation”, nor can you keep assuming the world is coming to an end. What’s to gain by being angry without a means to constructively change that which causes you pain.

    If you think I am wrong in this approach please take any period in the worlds past, that had written records, and review what was being said at the time. Was there really a prior happy lifespan? No dire hardships or expectations worse than today?

    The only agreement I have with most here is that the over reach of our governments has created extreme complacent citizens as a result of being extremely spoiled by the very same entity we despise. Governments have over reached with social agenda’s. You call that evil, but it’s intent certainly isn’t. Take away Social Security and medical. Now let the anger really boil over!

    &&&&&

    Why do you end-run the discussion every time with your non sequiturs and fairy-dust? In this instance, relative to the question I’d posed, your comment above have missed the broad side of the barn. Instead of obtusely avoiding the points I made, try addressing these: 1) the Baby Boomers’ retirement dreams have collapsed; 2) two-income homes have become a necessity just to stay nominally afloat; 3) even with two incomes, tens of millions of middle class families are in hock up to their eyeballs, borrowing against artificially inflated home values to put their kids through college; 5) the kids’ degrees are practically worthless and the economy has mostly $10-an-hour jobs to offer them; 5) air travel and other public-transportation amenities have sunk to Third-World levels. Etcetera. RA

    • gary leibowitz August 18, 2013, 5:42 pm

      I did answer the question by stating this time is no different than others when we have a very stable government for a very long time and the citizens are catered to far beyond our means. The second part of the problem is politicians being allowed more power with less control. This combination is deadly.

      My 2 posts expressed these points. You might not agree but considering all the other extreme posts such as Craig’s assumptions that governments intended this to happen, I am amazed that Jill and I are the only ones that are chastised.

      Lets see, we have a slew of people convinced that citizens who run for office, obtain it, are hell bent on destroying our government from within. I point out the current degradation of our economy and standard of living seems to repeat itself whenever the country becomes comfortable enough to allow complacency to set in. Just look at the corruption and lack of rules pre-1930’s. Now look at it from the 30’s till the 70’s.
      From the 70’s to today almost all the strict rules and checks and balances are gone. And so it goes.

      You insist that this time is different and if you dig deep enough we will find that conspirator. I like to work with the premise that the simplest solution is the most logical, and if proven wrong work my way down. This is how you construct complex programming systems.

      My ever present theme in these posts irks you to no end. I do not see some hidden elite group of all powerful members siting around a table and discussing a game plan to continue to dominate the world by suppression. My simple argument is that government longevity is proportional to increased power, corruption, and decreased rules of checks and balances. It sure looks that way on an historical context. You ask for details on the “why” this is all happening. You will only find loose ends using great leaps of faith to sew those ends together. Natural laws of behavior can be thought of in terms of the scientific laws of entropy. Order to disorder, and reversed. Complex with no real way of defining the details, or replicating the results exactly. I give up on the details and focus on the known resulting process.

  • mava August 17, 2013, 7:42 pm

    It is simple, really.

    Take the combined purchasing power spent on:

    -supporting the hundreds of military bases around the world.
    -supporting an entire caste of well fed military and their families.
    -supporting the lavish US government with all of it’s structures, furnishings, black tinted vehicles, tech centers, etc.
    -supporting millions upon millions of worthless USG employees, each comes with unbelievable fantastic salary and endless list of benefits and pensions.

    Subtract this combined purchasing power from what the entire country makes as productive entity.

    What you have left is what is available to you, the people. Very little, as can be plainly seen.

    No shenanigans or speculators required for this wealth transfer. Just people’s stupidity and baseless patriotism.

    How was it done? By printing money. When a new dollar bill is printed, then the printer gets to spend the purchasing power equal to what one bill like this had in an economy just prior to printing.

    Where is this purchasing power comes from? Obviously, not from air!

    Because, if it was, then the government would simply print us into prosperity, – no one would need to work!

    So, then from where? The purchasing power of each new bill is collected from each previously existed dollar, meaning “removed”. Yes, the owners of those previously existing dollars are in sum, all together lose that same one dollar of purchasing power that the government gets to spend on itself!

    Yes, it is really this simple, and yes this is the COMPLETE answer to RA’s question. However, because the people are thieves by their nature, I do not expect to many to be openly acknowledging this truth.

  • Cam Fitzgerald August 17, 2013, 12:39 pm

    Apologies to anyone who might have been waiting for a follow up post. I am unable to connect to Ricks site most of the time now. Maybe just a slow line from Africa where I now live, but who really knows what the issue is about. Hopefully I can get back to posting normally once the speed picks up again.

    • John Farrell August 17, 2013, 11:29 pm

      Thanks for the update, Cam. I’ve been waiting ever so long with baited breath. At least I can now get back to breathing! I’ve been ‘enjoying’ and learning from your posts for some time now.

  • L fry August 16, 2013, 7:50 am

    Craig,

    You are spot on ! Add to the list the gulf oil disaster treated with a virulent carcinogen that is not allowed to be used in Europe. The fukushima disaster is ongoing+ will poison all the oceans fish making it highly carcinogenic as well. plutonium, celcium+strontium are deadly. Soft kill you say ? Hell no, They are reving up the killing disasters !

  • L fry August 16, 2013, 7:43 am

    Hello Folks,

    We are simply moving into the time forecasted as the ” great tribulations”. Check out the book of revelations, tis all there what is going to transpire. This will be the worst time that humankind has ever endured. The Luciferians, elite , will NOT win. The Lord God will return+ stomp them out. Look to the Lord for guidance

  • mario cavolo August 16, 2013, 6:16 am

    Interestingly regarding a possible continued thrashing of the indexes, the HK market just completely reversed its morning 1.5% decline closing the morning session up .4% (Japan’s Nikkei also) ….that’s interesting particularly considering there is no shorting available at that exchange, hence not a short squeeze…I didn’t see any fresh news as impetus…small bounce so far in the U.S. indexes…

  • Troll August 16, 2013, 3:44 am

    It baffles me when people talk about the poison we are being force-fed but have no issues with investing in mining companies, which are a HUGE polluter (thus poison) from an environmental standpoint. If despising one while ignoring the other (for profit) is okay . . . you are no better than the Monsanto’s of the world. You’re just killing things in a different way.

    • Craig August 16, 2013, 7:15 pm

      You are correct but you are making my point for me. They are hitting us from every angle while making laws to protect us from these poisons. To make them look like the food guys to the small minded sheep. The reason they make these laws to protect our health is to exempt themselves from these laws and selectively have them enforced on their competition.

      Pepsi and coke put so many chemicals in their products it’s baffling….10x the allowable carcinogens from stuff that has no business being in a product that is basically carbonated water and sugar!

      While your right about the mining, we can go on and on about every industry….the best one is nuclear reactors, 90% are leaking and they turn the sirens off or increase the “allowable” leaks retroactively….but that’s not my point….they need power to cool with no power they melt and burn through cement, rock, steel….so why is almost every single nuclear reactor on a FAULT LINE???? Why? Nuclear scientists and engineers are that dumb? Look at maps of where reactors are vs fault lines you will be disgusted….is that not a ticking time bomb by design….on a side note all the biological weapon labs are also usually on fault lines and hurricane hot zones…another planned “mistake”

    • Maumaj August 16, 2013, 7:58 pm

      Reply to Craig,
      I’m known to have a tendency to believe that the elite is out to get us by any means available to them. I’m a poor sheeple trying his best to survive and find it revolting to see what is happening all around us. I do my best to educate those around me but I am perceived as an odd specimen who is frustrated for not having “succeeded” well enough in life.

      Could you tell me where “They” will hide as they are polluting everything they touch? They live on the same earth that we all live on, I doubt there is any spot secluded enough to protect them from nuclear fallout or chemicals floating in the atmosphere. It would be easier for them to avoid certain products and certain medical practices, but when the earth, the water, the air is affected, would they not suffer as we would all suffer? I have a tendency to believe that “they” are rather dumb when dealing with questions outside of the financial realm.

    • Craig August 17, 2013, 6:15 pm

      Maumaj,

      Your question is kinda like asking a suicide bomber where they plan retire to. Most of the worker bees (Hillary etc) are probably promised endless life extension while biowarfare scientists like Dr Pyancka (however you spell it) of UT say man is a disease and I will be happy to be the last man on earth burying my family before I kill myself. They have all the right people with the right carrots in the right positions. Most don’t care if they lose some family, it’s for the greater good (the few). I expect they plan to survive in bunkers or think they can make a space station. You are dealing with inbreeds here…. With more power and wealth then sense. Your point is probably the hardest to grasp in most senses, why would people with EVERYTHING and secretly control EVERYTHING risk it to get what? More control? Over way less people? They want just enough people around to rape (literally) and fix the machines and use for entertainment, and small population that can be easily controlled to be in complete control forever. Plus they are pretty much all intothe occult so they are serving a darker power (real or imagined). Tony Blair, Hitler, Nancy Reagan, and many many others admit it.

  • wesmouch August 15, 2013, 11:30 pm

    Rick
    I think you are misstating the probelem. If you are middle/upper middle class and frugal (save 50% of income), then you are likely doing well. The fact is these problems are largely self inflicted. Most Americans are poor consumers and not very savvy. Just cutting your cellphone bill, cancelling cable, paying cash for used cars, buying a small house and attending a trade school instead of college if you are not going to enetr the ASTEM fields will put you in a good position. I have traveled the Thirld World and these people are much savier and thrifty than my neighbors. I think that there are two American middle classes: the stupid sheep and the savy. Hopefully your readers number in the latter category

    • BKL August 16, 2013, 4:05 am

      If you ever need to remind yourself how good you have it, look up the median income in Malaysia or Thailand. People in much of the third world would think they had died and gone to heaven if they could earn an American wage.

      This does not mean, however, that things are not getting worse and worse for America’s middle class. They are.

      After a fall in our living standards, a new normal sets in. People begin to shop only online and at Walmart.
      Society becomes poorer, but individuals convince themselves that they are holding their ground due to their own thrift and savvy. The numbers at John
      Williams’ Shadowstats.com do not lie.

    • mario cavolo August 16, 2013, 6:19 am

      Amen wesmouch….Asian/Chinese are far better at living frugal and content without so much that is simply a money drain…eg, I just can’t believe my brother pays $175 / month for cable/internet/phone service plus another $10 for netflix…such expenses in America don’t exist in emerging China, Malaysia, Thailand, etc…though those services are definitely going up in cost like everything else…

      Cheers, Mario

  • BigTom August 15, 2013, 7:40 pm

    Oh Boy, Jacques above, another foreign American basher. I have run across countless europeans in my travels that love bashing america/americans. Yet you guys are so caved in and blind to your own morally/financially bankrupt system over there your surrender posture with political bloomers showing displays political correctness at its worse. Hell, as right as you might be in some instances here in America, ya’ll are mostly much worse off over there than we are here….BTW Jacques, your details about fracking are totally wrong! Geeze, why do I bother…..

    In another gear, the PM market has blasted off starting last week. Wonder where this launch leads to….

    • Craig August 15, 2013, 7:56 pm

      The Europeans are UN many cases much worse than Americans as far as being lazy and not having a spine….everything that is going on in America right now was done in Europe already as a beta test for Americans (taking the guns, fake school shootings to do it “operation Gladio” look it up lazy asses). The difference is two things, Europe is already under complete control and they love their masters (idiots) and #2 they didn’t have to be drugged up and brainwashed for 2-3 generations to completely submit to tyranny, they suck, their future depends on Amercian citizens stopping all this or else their fate will be ours.

    • BigTom August 15, 2013, 8:17 pm

      Craig – Yep! You got it….LOL

    • Craig August 15, 2013, 8:30 pm

      By drugged up I mean drugged up and poisoned by the drugs food water and vaccines while being fattened up too.

      But when the American Cold War is over. In case you haven’t noticed the American government (ran by the european/American banking/royalty) have declared war on the American people they just haven’t fired the shots yet… It’s a cold war with the Gov arming to the teeth to protect them from American terrorist that do not exist and they have not created yet. Once they do the civil war will start if the people want it or not. When that happens Europe will be taken by Russia within mere days as the pansy europeons lay down to Russia which is also quietly but quickly filling every underground bunker with weapons. Once Russia starts increasing it’s troop strength (the middle east will be the excuse) to use all those “surplus” weapons then you will know the time is here. As this plan goes forward people will still say 9/11 was done by terrorist from the middle east (without ever lookin at 2min of tape of building 7) while their wives and daughter have TSA go inside the pants an inside them without changing gloves, to check for stinger missiles (that what Bamgazi was for ship stingers to alquada). As they do it the husband will say god bless America, whatever keeps us safe from those brown people with weird beards and turbins.

      Now if we point out 9/11 was done by the government to bring in patriot act 1&2, control the oil, get control of the opium growth (90% in Astan since 9/11) an the CiA controls the pediphile rings, the drug trafficking and the sex trafficking, then and only then will there be no shots fired on America and Europe can not be rolled over. That wont happen because Americans even in this room refuse to look at one piece of evidence and submit to what the TV tells them to think, even the one that know the fed reserve and wall street is rigged will not even look. The conspiracy theorist label is the biggest and most effective phycop they have done. The best is “truthers” as a bad label, he is one of those truthers! Logically how is it that someone wanting to know the truth (doesn’t matter if they are correct or not) and wanting answers is a BAD THING?!? Read 1984…and the author was a British intelligence insider they knew this is how they would do it back then with this ridiculous double speak! CO2 is poisonous and bad for the earth! You mean the stuff plants breath and use to make oxygen is bad for earth and we should all get taxed for it!!!! How many in here still are fallin for that? Do you also think prowrestling is real? Oh yeas those people are ready to physically fight you if you say wrestling is fake….

  • Rich August 15, 2013, 6:55 pm

    “The decision to leave CNBC was a tough one—as emotionally difficult as when I decided to leave the my 10-year gig as a daily business columnist at The San Francisco Chronicle for TheStreet in 1998, where I remained for six years. During that time I was a frequent CNBC guest and contributor before joining full-time a little more than three years ago.”

    http://www.cnbc.com/id/100965647

  • Jill August 15, 2013, 6:22 pm

    Here’s a book about how TV dumbs down the population, distracts people from what’s really important etc. If the folks who own the media haven’t done this intentionally, they sure are benefiting from it.

    http://www.amazon.com/Age-Missing-Information-Bill-McKibben/dp/081297607X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376583452&sr=1-1&keywords=the+age+of+missing+information

    • mario cavolo August 16, 2013, 6:22 am

      Hi Jill, we were just on our 3 week holiday visiting family in AZ…I just can’t believe American television, it is a tool to keep the sheep brainwashed and occupied…really terrible. With that said, American hollywood production is remarkable, they produce some great shows…

      Cheers, Mario

  • Jacques Redou August 15, 2013, 5:11 pm

    The key to understanding our (American) dilemma
    is the owner’s manual in the glove box of your car.

    Most manuals specify a list of maintenance items
    at mileage intervals, such as change your automatic
    transmission fluid and filter each 60,000 miles.

    Americans Don’t Do Maintenance. They wait until something breaks, then spend a lot of money to solve
    their problem. This is the way they treat their cars
    and this is the way they treat their bodies.
    This is the way they treat their nation.

    Americans are ALWAYS ready for the next NEW thing.
    They have fake friends on facebook. They go to the
    new restaurant. They watch the latest movie. But they don’t have time for maintenance.

    I started shopping for a new truck. The one I wanted
    was Very Expensive. I needed to sell my Old truck
    and use the money for a down payment. So I took some time to Clean Up the truck I already had. I cleaned carpet, seats, glass, changed the fluids, made sure everything worked correctly and would appeal to a buyer.

    That was Twelve years ago. I didn’t buy the new truck. Once I cleaned it up – the old truck Looked Good. The forty thousand dollars are still in the bank plus the minuscule interest. The old truck still
    runs good – because I Maintain it. I estimate maintenance is 1/5 the cost of New.

    Perhaps it’s because America was a Vast Land. People could always move to a new place.

    Perhaps they were risk takers when they left their
    homeland to come here. People whose nature was to
    seek something new and different.

    Whatever the reason, the latest fad or craze diverts
    everyone’s attention from Taking Care of what you Already Have. The Energy of the People is wasted on Diversions and short term solutions.

    The ultimate expression of this concept is Fracking. Short term profit – Leaving us (and our children) with undrinkable water.

    I took an informal poll several years ago. Most of the men I know are over 40, divorced and on their second or third wife or on girlfriend number X.

    I asked these guys: Given what you know now; would you have divorced your first wife? I was Surprised when most of them answered No.

    Now the whole country’s freaking out because they
    might not be able to afford the latest I-Gadget.

    Earth to America: the I – Gadget is an illusion. Your
    home, your family, friends, your food, your bank account, your community, your body – is Real. There are no more empty lands to move to.

    The answers are the same as they’ve always been:

    Accountability
    Responsibility

    It’s time to catch up on Maintenance.

    • Craig August 15, 2013, 5:44 pm

      *your bank account, is not real either…your gold an silver and even copper is thou.

      But good post.

      The young today actually think they don’t need any maintenance because by the time they get some disease/problem….there will be a pill for that….none of these pills today even work except to give you liver cancer later.

  • Rich August 15, 2013, 4:24 pm

    Re “I remain convinced that we are witnessing a very deft and delicate distribution by DaBoyz. Although we should always pay heed to the adage about not fighting the Fed, it is quite plausible that the central bank’s best efforts are about to be overwhelmed by the economy’s encroaching failure. Nor am I buying the most recent uptick in retail sales as somehow meaningful. With real incomes stagnant, robust consumption implies only that yet more layers of credit are piling up against the weakest U.S. recovery on record. Of course, none of this precludes the possibility of a short-squeeeze rally that takes the broad averages to new record highs. My guess is that such a rally would be short-lived. In any case, I would not fear shorting into it.”

    Well writ Rick.
    You are the king of the ST markets.

    Several ops to take profits up to 100% on QQQ Aug calls, but got greedy.

  • Buster August 15, 2013, 4:03 pm

    It’s raining here today, scuppering my original plans, & hence leaving me time to ponder things further. For this I apologize sincerely….
    The older I get the more I come to see lies, lies & more damned lies!
    The ‘problem’ that we all instinctively seek to comprehend as we gradually awaken to realize that ‘something’s just not quite right around here!’, is not so much a physical one, so the answer doesn’t lie in gauging our material gain, that is itself often little more than a bribe for our conscience. The problem is firstly a monetary one, & further is a judicial one. That the monetary system is built on a fraud with losers locked in by design should be of far more importance to each of us than what we may personally enjoy from it, & that it is not of more importance is an indication of our naivety or corruption. As many who lived under the Nazi’s came to lament, they should have cared more when their neighbors were dragged out of their homes.
    Further, any sweeping technological & material advances that are (mistakenly) attributed to a capitalist free market system, as the Elites have laid claim to in their declarations justifying their rightful ownership of the world that their system has created, is also a very flawed sense of reasoning based on the kind of self-justification that we all exhibit to some degree & scars our sense of justice that is apparently hard wired into the human psyche. As has been well enough documented, America was doing far better under the non-debt based ‘Colonial Scrip’ currency system than ever it did under the Elite Banksters debt based monetary slave whip, even to the point where the debt meisters openly admitted in statements that unless America was stopped it’s power & influence would doom the European debt run empire to oblivion. Indeed they knew that the exodus to the Americas by so many people fleeing the Bankster tyranny of debt burden of the time wasn’t due to free Disneyland tickets or all you can eat deals! Given the choice we all choose freedom over tyranny when we get a taste of what both are really about.
    It can be convincingly shown that not only has such immoral tyranny stood in the way of technological progress that could have transformed life far better than it is or has been; it has given us ‘Detroit’, which is itself just a taste of what has been going on for centuries worldwide. The proliferation of war that their system bears as its rotten fruit, should be more than enough proof that Corporate Fascism built on debt based money with ultimate centralized power is a recipe for a growing disaster, but no! A few sweet spots here & there, the odd innovation thrown out & a good clear out of the casualties every so often & it’s business as usual! Progress as seen from the short sighted perspective of a self-interested declining number of us, gauging by the of the rising tide of dissenting voices around the net & the indeed the world.
    The Corporate Fascist occupying regime may promise peace & security, but that is the antithesis of what they deliver.
    A corrupted system that’s unfit for purpose requires ever more ‘force’ to maintain itself, whilst a good system based on justice is self-maintaining due to the mutual benefit that it allows for all. One gains free support, the other growing resistance.
    I wonder which best describes our World system?

    • Craig August 15, 2013, 5:29 pm

      Unfortunately the finacial control is just one prong of a multipronged attack against ALL of us. But most can only see this attack and not the rest of them. Mostly because it’s so diabolical and so sophisticated no one can believe a group of 6,000 is so twisted…and it’s been going on almost unchecked for 120+ years. It’s all true and we the people are having one small victory every year while give up more ground and lose in five other areas. What they are doing to us in the food, water and vaccines poisoning us (they call it soft kill), don’t need proof it’s poison look around everysone is fat, and will have an autistic child with half your family with cancer and 66% diabetic by design ro make you dependent on the Rockefeller designed pharmacy healthcare system, they have bee trying to get in for over 80 years and finally did. That wont allow anyone to fight whats coming without being cutoff from the system to “treat” the diseases we will all have that they gave us through poisoning everything we eat and drink. Control of the media and the lazy complacent masses allow this. If you have not looked into building 7, aspartame, GMOs and floride, then that is you, you are part of the blame. You only think of yourself and not your childrens futures. My favorite denial reaction is, “I don’t care I won’t be around” and the guy has 3 kids, just sick BUT that is just another mind controlled fool parroting what the movies and TV subconsciously tell us to think, which means you are weak minded….these are not the droids your looking for. Move along. These are not the Druids we are looking for, move along, move along……

      Centralized banks, income tax, gmo foods, control of the media, florinated water, control of Hollywood, control of pharma, control of oil, control of healthcare and 9/11 is how they got us. Once they take the guns with more stagged shootings/bombings as Fienstiens said “don’t worry there will be more” they will take the food and energy from us as they have made us sooo dependent on food/water and power/oil, 60% would die in a month or two. They will be pulling that trigger in our lifetime. The only way to stop it is to WAKE UP NOW! Next year, next election, next whatever is way too LATE!!

    • Buster August 15, 2013, 6:39 pm

      Yes, these are all branches of the tree, all connected, all designed on the same malevolent motives of destructive economics theory. These branches all but guarantee that nobody gets out alive, let alone wins the game. These branches all grew from the control of the monetary system, as these criminals well knew that with that everything else eventually follows.

      “Give me control of a nations money & I care not who makes the laws”-Meyer A. Rothschild

      Take away this root & the whole rotten tree dies through the natural process of having no tasty fruit that anyone wants to eat unless forced to, as is presently the case.

  • Redwilldanaher August 15, 2013, 3:19 pm

    http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2013/08/20130814_areyoukiddingme.png

    I know that we’re supposed to believe that things are great, why just look at corporate earnings! But then something like that graphic comes along and obliterates our panglossian friends. Oh, and don’t forget that 77% of the fake jobs that have been “created” this year that you probably read about in fake reports written by corrupt government hacks and pulished by corporately controlled “news” organizations are of the part-time nature.

  • BKL August 15, 2013, 3:14 pm

    I would really like to hear some memories and reflections from women who can remember the early 1970s. How bad were we men? Were men better in some ways? What do you miss from those times?

  • Howg August 15, 2013, 2:44 pm

    Great comments…

    I will only add that this dire situation has been deliberately engineered by a predatory, psychopathic, super-elite class. It has nothing to do with government. We do not have a government.
    They are very smart, very effective, draining all of our wealth & creativity by (among others) monetizing it all into debt.

    Mario is right about the illusion of our “free choices”.
    The vast majority are led, very plastic, in a hypnotic state. This has always been the case – the success or failure of a society lies in its leadership, supported by a small minority of relatively aware/thinking people. It has never been the majority, nor will it ever be, that brings about positive change. That’s just the way it is.

    The issues we face are not just economic either.
    The entire food supply has been poisoned, health care is insane & hugely toxic, an education system that destroys intelligence, polluted oceans & air & land, and so on. It is a very long list, as virtually everything has been undone by the criminally insane psychopaths who are running the show.

    Yes – we are complacent and allowed this to come to pass.
    But no, it is not really our fault in the sense that we did not corrupt the system, we do not own the media, we did not monetize our labour into debt, we did not invent GMO foods, nor did we create/support monopolies in energy production, and so on.

    We naively expected our leadership to look after our best interests, which is what they are hired to do.
    But they are all bought. We are the most corrupt countries in the world (western democracies), but we are too stupid to see it. So we blame ourselves for the sins of mass murdering, predatory psychopaths…

    Our current situation is not a reflection of our “human nature” and never has been.
    That’s a lie too.
    They’ve projected their destructive nature onto our (human) nature, and would have us blame ourselves for their ruinous actions.
    This is a death cult folks – everything is based on death (including medicine, agriculture, etc. in addition to overt warfare [mass murder]).
    How could anything positive come of this?

    Like I said – these guys are very, very clever.
    Stop blaming yourself for being a good, trusting human being. A good family man/woman, a hard, honest worker, a good neighbour… These traits are despised by our glorious leaders (and we don’t even know who they are!), but they are the essence of our humanity.

    And most importantly, do try your very best to stop feeding the beast !!!!

    • Redwilldanaher August 15, 2013, 3:11 pm

      Howg, thanks for taking the time to lay it out. I couldn’t find the energy this time around to do it. I consider Rick a friend and visit his site everyday but I still maintain that he is not nearly cynical enough for this world, at least with his commentary.

    • mario cavolo August 16, 2013, 6:29 am

      Howg, its very easy when you know what it is and how to do it, to use “leading” language structures to do exactly that, lead people’s minds and emotions and behaviors exactly down the road you want them to go down, whilst they don’t even realize its happening to them. Its quite magical, but when used for less than ideal and ethical purposes, causes a lot of problems in a given society of citizens, hence the state of America today.

      The marketing/ad industry, govt/political block, big companies with their PR firms all know what the language tools and techniques are and employ them masterfully. The citizenry doesn’t stand a chance if their various overlords aren’t compassionate, concerned leaders.

      Cheers, Mario

  • Buster August 15, 2013, 10:48 am

    Asleep at the wheel?… or maybe the sheeple among us just need enough toys to keep them from caring about Corporate Fascism’s advance since, let’s be honest here, any sense of disgust at its injustices are easily ignored with a few distractions so long as it’s somebody else suffering. I’m sure all the victims must have deserved it due to their obvious inferiority to us, whether they be now living in tents here or tents somewhere over there, it’s surely a price worth paying for all this ‘progress’??

    What is WWIII is all about?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zwKZQUcYkg

    Russia, China, Iran & Syria line up to confront the Western Corporate interests.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMJKAFAOrjs

    The optimists can keep harping on about how great life is on the back of this corrupt system but I bet they’ll not be taking a vacation to the middle east any time soon!

    Humanity’s shame is in clear sight for anyone willing to look past the toys.

  • Brenton August 14, 2013, 7:59 pm

    Great question Rick. I’m surprised to see so many of your subscribers just take it as true that our standard of living has declined. I don’t necessarily agree with the crowd here on that one.

    Technological advancements in the last 50 years have improved our standard of living in many areas. But it seems we have less discretionary time – which argues in favor of lower ‘living standards’.

    Here’s my test of whether my personal living standard is better now than it might have been if I were me 50 years ago. I believe I would have a harder life then than now. So despite all the doom and gloom that is so fashionable these days, I actually prefer my current situation and thus disagree that our net living standards are worse off.

    • Buster August 15, 2013, 11:10 am
    • BKL August 15, 2013, 2:42 pm

      My freedom and ground mobility was truly miraculous in 1972. There was a delicious, totally nutritious meal waiting for me at home, if I wanted it. All I had to do, to get a decent job, was to put on a suit and walk right into a business and ask to talk to the manager. If I was polite and well-spoken, he would at least refer me to someone who was hiring.

      There was hope and optimism in the air, too.
      We had just sent about eight manned missions to the moon.

      We had so much free time to spend with our friends in real, face to face interaction. People would play cards nearly every week with their friends.

      Medicine has improved since 1972, but only the actual medication. We have miraculous new drugs, but half the people can’t afford to go to a doctor.

    • BKL August 15, 2013, 2:52 pm

      Rick made a point of talking about the experience of public transportation nowadays. He forgot to mention that it was also faster in 1972. A lot faster. The Long Island Railroad into midtown Manhattan was much faster in the 1930s than it is today. It took something like HALF as much time to fly NY to Miami in the 1960s.

    • mario cavolo August 16, 2013, 6:32 am

      Brenton, you make a highly valid point…in the traditional sense, progress has made our lives so much better; mortality rates, medicine, running water, consistent heating and cooling, wireless communication and on and on…but it all means diddly, has nothing to do with true sense of wellbeing, if you’re struggling to pay the bills…

      Cheers, Mario

  • gary leibowitz August 14, 2013, 4:16 am

    We love to label a villain or protagonist against many victims. In our short democracy we have repeated this cycle. Does that mean that democracy itself is evil? Surely our history is bloody and filled with injustice far worse than what we complain about today. How would you feel being black at a time when the highest court in our land declared you were a commodity like furniture to be bought, sold, and disposed of in any fashion they choose?

    Are we really worse off than other times? Is our current circumstance so bad? we complain about losses but never put the gains in perspective. it wasn’t long ago where the woman used all her time keeping house. we love to complain no matter how much better off we are than at any time in our past history. we also seem to forget that these patterns of boom/bust is an natural as waking up in the morning. If anyone bothered to look each and every debacle was followed by advances that far stripped the previous ones.

    You place such complicated malevolence to political figures when in truth a majority react in the same fashion you would. case studies have shown conclusively that when a good intended individual with compassion and empathy was placed in an absolute authoritative position they eventually succumb to the forces of power.

    In truth the quality of our democracy succeeded so well that our complaints are laughable just a few decades ago. The only similarity throughout is our ability to complain. we seem never to be satisfied with our station in life. Yes it’s true that we hit an economic plateau some time ago and politicians are frantic to keep the status quo. It is just as true that we are slipping backwards slowly but surely. If politicians were so evil why would they give us too much government assistance, especially at a time when we can’t afford it? Especially at a time when the corruption has created the biggest rift between rich and poor? Surely a one-dimensional political individual intent on destroying our way of life would have come up with a better plan then the one they submitted.

    So as you pontificate on the reasons this malevolence gained power, and draft a trilogy that would make Tolkien proud, please remember this is only one play of many, and one act of one play of many.

    As we speak this crumbling society continues to gasp for air. Retail sales just caused the bond yield to jump nearing its recent highs. EU recovering, China not, earnings explosion at some of those high tech dotcoms (previously known as dotbombs). Does anyone even bother to check the pulse of the economy before we write it off? We are an impatient lot.

    The only thread of commonality I have with most here is the notion that we have not hit the trough of this cycle and that it will be a deep one. I do not force my will and logic on the world economies. it has its own rhythm and timing. I still subscribe to the notion that you must stumble before you fall. this has been one long marathon, but who am I to state when the race is over, or when the runner has no more to give. Today the consumer is getting a second wind.

    • Troll August 14, 2013, 6:58 am

      I must say, I find it strange, Gary, that you can come up with such an articulate response when most times you have difficulty discerning between “then” and “than,” but it’s probably just me.

    • Redwilldanaher August 14, 2013, 4:28 pm

      Gary, why not just copy and paste “this is the best of all possible worlds” into Rick’s forum every day and save yourself a lot of time?

    • gary leibowitz August 14, 2013, 7:09 pm

      I was taught using phonetics as a child. Don’t know why I have such a hard time with then and than still.

      I reiterate here on a constant basis that we have a bad habit of crying even before the pain sets in. It is just a small shot at balancing the litany of very emotional and angry responses. I just re-read the Grapes Of Wrath and for the life of me I can’t imagine the next depression ever getting worse. No bank assurances, huge displacement of manual labor by machines, unions in it’s infancy, robber barons at their peak, little government assistance and no safety net before the crash.

      Is it going to be worse the next time around?

  • Mustafa August 14, 2013, 12:11 am

    Great observations Cam. I agree with much of what you say. Go ahead and tell us the story.

    • Jill August 14, 2013, 2:02 am

      Your experiences and perspectives are quite interesting to me too, Cam. Please do tell your story. I look forward to reading it.

  • Cam Fitzgerald August 13, 2013, 8:19 pm

    You have a really interesting question today, Rick. Your comment that our standard of living is about to collapse despite having fallen continuously for the past 40 years running is frightening on its face.

    It is a great observation though.

    I agree we are headed for tougher times. Despite the outward trappings of growing wealth there remains that niggling problem that two incomes are no longer sufficient to support a normal family.

    In fact, it has been a few long decades since one person could support a normal household and in the intervening period we have reluctantly adjusted but have never been able to return to the good old days.

    We first noticed this creeping loss in our living standards more than 30 years back. Following the high inflation period of the Seventies and the recession of the early Eighties there was a profound change in how labour was utilized.

    Pay packages of the family breadwinner shrank substantially in inflation adjusted terms. Women embraced work like there was no tomorrow. Fatherless homes became almost the norm and divorce rates rocketed up. So did crime for awhile.

    At that time we were already beginning to pay the price for how our rising salaries and the benefits outgrowth since the end of the great war had become dangerously disconnected from the rest of the world.

    It was no coincidence that simultaneous to the women’s movement and demands for equal pay etcetera that “globalization” and “free trade” ideals were entering the public lexicon for the first time.

    That was the inflection point. It was the time when we first realized we were not really alone on the planet and that others might intrude with offers of lower wages for equal work. They were much poorer than us after all. We reveled in that knowledge.

    Meanwhile, the womens movement with its novel demands for income equality and benefits (childcare being an example) was merely symbolic of the global climate where a new equity was also being demanded sharply by those living in poorer nations.

    The great liberation of women and their human rights was therefore just a public distraction from more serious demands for income sharing emanating from developing nations where more serious poverty existed.

    The real threat certainly came from overseas and yet we all paid a price here at home as sharing of incomes and the jobs on offer became an issue of the sexes without there being a corresponding appreciation of how ALL our wages were being pressed lower by the unemployment and surplus labour in countries we had never before paid attention too.

    It did not matter that our economic adversary actually lived in a different country nor that our employer was more inclined to hire offshore than support our regional demands for better living wages. We all thought women and their selfish demands for equality in the workplace were the problem when in fact their actions were merely symptomatic of a larger problem.

    We were getting poorer. A lot poorer. We needed two incomes to survive.

    We had alson become badly disconnected from our occupation and its rewards and what employers were willing to pay in a world where resources and incomes were being redistributed to others with less means. It was a development we had no control over and very few understood the ramifications that were to come.

    We wanted more (of course) but we had no more leverage to demand it. We struck! They locked us out. Our employers packed up bit by bit in disgust and moved elsewhere. They saw better pastures. The union movement thus died amidst mass protests around the country that made no difference whatsoever in the end and we watched helplessly as our incomes declined year after year in real terms and our good jobs moved out of the country.

    Starting salries for skilled labour are actually lower today than they were when I took my first union job in 1979!!!

    That is to say that what I laboured to earn 35 years ago for 12 dollars per hour now pays a measly 10 bucks for the same damn hour. The kids get far less today and that is AFTER a huge burst of inflation that happened in the 70’s and 80’s and ruined what we should have known were the good old times.

    Factories that were held hostage in those days and were surrounded day and night by union thugs amidst violent protests refused to relent. Some shipped out equipment under the cover of night and escaped elsewhere. …..others bankrupted and sold off their assets to the highest bidder.

    We accepted it in the end. What choice did we have? Legal battles were fought over the closures of some industries but government seemed to always favour the employer even when they were departing and taking their plant and equipment to Mexico or China.

    We were like children just learning for the first time what the meaning of income arbitrage was really all about. What it was about (quite simply) was that we workers were too expensive in a world that was flattening incomes due to international trade and the new globalization tren. We also learned business was borderless and mercenary where its own survival was concerned.

    So while we fretted and fumed over the “Women’s Movement” back home, the rest of the world was actually eating our lunch. Our family structures and values got cannibalized in the process and our society was cast adrift against the onslaught of an economic enemy few understood.

    We were just too damn expensive. Just that simple.

    But we did not yet know it. I have a story to tell by the way. It may offer an insight into where we are going and why we remain in an income bubble of historic proportions. It might even shed light on how we got in this predicament and explain where we are headed if only by anlogy. If even one person asks then I will tell it.

    Otherwise this is the end of my post.

    • Troll August 14, 2013, 12:13 am

      Go for it, Cam … it would be a great follow-up to a great post and if it’s worthy of a debate, all the better.

    • BKL August 14, 2013, 4:07 am

      Of course I want to hear your story, Cam.

    • BKL August 14, 2013, 4:18 am

      “We were just too damn expensive. Just that simple.”
      You said it, Cam. Nice and simple.

      But the worst thing is that we knew we were too damn expensive, and we were actually proud of it! One of the most ruinous things a country can experience is the false pride of unnaturally good times.

      We still have not come to grips with the high percentage of our economy which is based upon needless, and even destructive friction. We spend over $400 billion a year on intelligence! Then come the lawyers….

    • Craig August 15, 2013, 9:07 pm

      Cam,

      You need to utube Aaron Russos last interview before he died where he talks about how the Rockefellers bragged to him (while they were recruiting him into the NWO) that they financed the Womans movement…not to empower woman bit to increase the tax base and destroy the family.

      They also told him that an event would happen and we would be fighting cave to cave a war on terror forever against an enemy that didn’t exist and we would never defeat.

    • Buster August 15, 2013, 9:51 pm

      Here’s the link to Aaron Russo’s interview where he talks about 9/11 & Rockerfeller prior knowledge of it.

    • Buster August 15, 2013, 9:51 pm
    • mario cavolo August 16, 2013, 7:47 am

      that’s a great post Cam. American’s got spoiled and too expensive. I supposed Europeans too…Cheers, Mario

  • cathy August 13, 2013, 7:55 pm

    There is no one answer and the 3 posed are true to an extent, but it is more complex.

    You have to have an extremely “smart” population today to be able to navigate what has been created. You don’t necessarily have to be educated, because so many of the schools (Harvard, Yale, Columbia, etc) are turning out people like Obama, Bush, Clinton, and most the Supreme court Justices . (And obviously you don’t need a decent IQ for those colleges but money and “connections” as little Bush did). They have been trained to coordinate the Corporate-State. So we have fascism on one hand. Then we have extreme socialists involved in the “governing” of this Corporate-State, who seem to want the Authoritarian brand of Socialism (Via a massive surveillance society aided by the corrupt and traitorous organizations such as FBI, CIA, Homeland Sec, NSA, SEC, etc etc, some of which are openly killing Americans and foreign “guests” in the US). We might end up with something much worse than the USSR, I’m sad to say.

    The current Corporate-State has been good to the Banking cartel. The Central bank, aka Federal Reserve, has been the delight of parasitic classes who have been able to siphon and extract the wealth of the nation. Of course, they aided in setting up a massive middle class after WWII which was needed for the Tax base and to help support and pay for the invasions all over the planet. So, outwardly it looked to us and the world like we were really doing something “different” than other nations since we had this big Middle Class. But I think it was created for the Ruling classes, to parasite from.

    Well, that Middle class is no longer needed. They have the entire globe to extract wealth from. In fact, a “smart” population is a massive threat, therefore the last 30 years have been associated with “dumbing down” the population (maybe longer). They do this through injecting people with vaccines, that few of us even know what is actually going into our own children (note the increase in neurological disorders).

    Some of the Wealthy have been busy demonizing Americans. Many websites devote themselves to showing how stupid Americans are. How evil we are because of all the invasions. And other negative things. It is all designed to prepare the world and the American population for their demise. I hate watching it unfold.

    I recently saw Evelyn de Rothschild going on about how wonderful Asia is and that is the future. Well, he is only one in millions who are pushing the future to the East, while demonizing the West. Even some of my favorite people to listen to, such as Jim Willie have joined in the trashing of an entire nation…..

    ….but we have allowed it to happen. So the population has some degree of culpability. Go into a Walmart sometime and watch the people. It is such a terrible shame. Very sad about it all.

    • Craig August 16, 2013, 7:52 pm

      Anyone notice that Walmart changed their logo a few years ago to the all seeing eye (made to look like the sun also) just like time Warner, Toyota, AOL and the list goes on. Next time your in Walmart look at the layout, the cameras inside and out….looks like it would make wonderful detention center or prisoner transfer facility pretty quickly…and in every small town too, very convenient…

  • Buster August 13, 2013, 12:22 pm

    At this stage in the game, we need to identify the right part of the problem, as well as perhaps understanding the consequential benefits.
    The supply of goods & services are a product of the replacement for the slave whip of yesteryear, that is now the DEBT ‘whip’ of today.
    This debt ‘fraud’ which is in place of money, effectively remolding the tool of money into the weapon of debt is actually enforced upon us, since many have tried to resist it & failed unanimously. It drives both the strong & the weak, the wise & the foolish in the direction of slavery. The abundance of ‘products’ & even direction of their advancements is a consequence of this ‘whip’. It is true to say it has shaped the world we live in today more than anything else, with much of the ‘stuff’ we see, yet someone must become further indebted with the threat & fear of losing everything in order for us to have some of these products, since new debt absolutely must be borrowed in order to keep the fraud from collapsing & crushing us all under it’s weight. So, while appreciating the creation of products, it is also perhaps responsible & right to see the destruction which accompanies it in the form of the despair wreaked by debt on somebody somewhere, with even war historically & intrinsically part of the equation.
    Take away this debt ‘whip’ & many revert to sitting around a lot more, producing less products, as seen in lands without such a debt burden. Less centralized power is also evident, too, & therein lies the key to grasping what it’s all about.
    It could be argued that we can have our cake & eat it, the products without the despair of destructive debt. That has been achieved before under just rule of law that maintains limits on debt, & also notably on unwarranted power within it’s such a realm, by way of a 7 year debt jubilee.
    So, perhaps even deeper in understanding this apparent conundrum of so much stuff but such a worry about money & the root of our predicament than even the mechanism of the debt whip & it’s consequences, both positive & negative, is the question of ‘sovereignty’.
    Importantly, because of the necessary growth of debt in this monetary system, the cycles of boom & bust become shorter unless the quantities of new debt borrowed increase exponentially, since the new debt money is eaten up by ever increasing payments on the growing total debt. So we appear to be fast approaching the entire consequences of this imposed structure, which inevitably must result in all the world being owed to the lender with it’s consequent absolute accumulation of wealth & centralization of power over a species driven by the physical, but not the spiritual, perhaps?
    Previous attempts at maintaining this system have historically ended soon after all real estate was leveraged up in debt, that being the ultimate ‘real wealth’ that could be accumulated, followed by disintegration of the empire running the debt machine, but maybe our modern alchemists can continue further than previous civilizations by way of virtual worlds, or even mortgaging up other planets we may soon visit. I’m sure they’ll try anything to keep the gravy train rolling.
    Whatever, this system is unfit for the purpose of sustainable human societies, as surely the growing realization that all this ‘stuff’ doesn’t justify the overall misery of debt, testifies to, but I doubt such a realization will change the outcome, which has a number of historical precedents , though all notably failed to have a global grasp on power as is now sought. Maybe that is why this time could be different, & we’ll soon realize the nightmare that is absolute power permanently in the hands of the psychopaths that simply must rule their fellow man or else they’ll scream!
    I must say, the death & destruction that has been the hallmarks of centralized rule don’t leave me dreaming of the next I-phone model.

  • BKL August 13, 2013, 12:01 pm

    We are feeling more and more strongly, the louder and louder rumblings of a Malthusian earthquake. The initial shocks were felt during the first Arab oil embargo in the early 1970’s. The tremors subside whenever some clever person comes up with a new form of efficiency.

    That efficiency can come in the form of more efficient engines and electrical appliances. We can also borrow from non-energy-related aspects of our lives, but those borrowings have side-effects.

    One good example would be borrowing about 90 percent of the moms, and making them work full-time, in addition to taking care of their family. IMHO this was the root cause of the current obesity epidemic.

    The moms have fewer children. Now we don’t have enough workers to support retired people. The ones who are born, wish they had never been born into this mess. This is just another way of nature regulating population. Hey! It’s better than Ethiopia. We are the lucky ones!

    You can have people go deeper into debt, with obvious side-effects.

    White-collar workers can get three times as much work done, using computers. What were once cushy jobs, are now packed with three times more stress.

    Our population has risen exponentially against a relatively constant resource base. Look at any world population graph. It shouts die-off.

    Malthus did not foresee the efficiencies that would result from international trade. Through trade, it is possible to create more goods and services using the same amount of resources, IF you possess the energy required to move the resources around. But eventually, our numbers overwhelm even the most efficient scenario.

    Energy is only the first weak link. Food and copper will come later. Shortages of food and copper are closely related to a shortage of energy. Gold is highly condensed energy.

    • Buster August 13, 2013, 12:37 pm

      Don’t believe the lie. There is infinitely more energy than we ever need if we were allowed to access it, as there is infinitely more food possible than is now produced.
      The restrictions to such things conspicuously lie with our rulers who choose scarcity over such abundance for us all but not them, & profit from war rather than peace.
      They are indicted for the directions, we for following them.

    • BKL August 13, 2013, 1:03 pm

      Buster, where is this infinite supply of energy that we are not being allowed to access? Are you referring to the fracked natural gas in Texas? The gas which requires vast amounts of precious water(in Texas!) and toxic chemicals to be pumped into life-sustaining underground aquifers? What could possibly go wrong?

    • BKL August 13, 2013, 1:36 pm

      Correction. I should have said that gold “represents” highly condensed energy.

    • Buster August 13, 2013, 2:01 pm

      No, I refer to the electric Universe ‘theory’, & the infinite pool of electro magnetism cited by Tesla & others who have achieved this to varying degrees to their peril. Well worth some investigation as an antidote to the lies inflicted upon us from on high & to those, even some here, who haven’t figured out there’s a conspiracy against humanity on the grandest scale possible.
      Fracking just allows the ‘game’ to continue for a bit longer at best. Britain found North Sea oil in the 1970’s amid cheers that it would be of benefit to all. Forty years of it didn’t change much other than allow government to grow bigger on the back of it whilst ordinary people have gone further into debt & few are even able to own a home or support themselves independent from government.

    • Willio August 16, 2013, 12:42 am

      BKL – Hydraulic Fracturing uses only a fraction of the amount of water used in agriculture (to grow corn to use as fuel, not food, driving up the price of corn). Further, claims of pumping chemicals into our drinking water aquifers is completely bogus. The fracturing fluids are 99.5% water and they are injected thousands of feet below the drinking water aquifers. Anti-fracturing zealots are liars and frauds.

  • merv conlan August 13, 2013, 2:24 am

    Good One. You have some of the sharpest/high IQ folks on any forum I ‘ve read. Regardless, very rooted to the practical day to day.

  • Frank August 12, 2013, 11:30 pm

    My greatest fear is that all our problems (over consumerism, over dependence on government, lack of self-discipline…etc.) will be solved by a cathartic depression. When the sheeple begin to fight for survival they will gradually become people again. Our country had a small taste of this process during the ’30s.

  • gary leibowitz August 12, 2013, 6:51 pm

    I would have to generalize with a notion that all mature societies follow the same path. The infant stage where ideology reigns is one where we aspire to gain wealth and freedom. During this time frame there is a common goal. While there is still corruption and greed during this early stage the over riding drive and awareness by the masses is to take action. When we mature to such a degree that there is no longer a central struggle, we revert to selfish gains abandoning the higher ideals of a free and fair society.

    Take a snapshot today on all aspects of our lives and try to compare it to any other place or time in history. We are still in the golden moment. Many will disagree with me, but ask yourself where or when would you rather live? Before you dismiss me as a Pollyanna let me continue by saying that moment is being lost and at an accelerated pace. We hit a plateau some time ago where complacency of freedoms gained allowed a flood gate of political corruption and extreme pandering to their constituents. There is always a moment in society where a balance must be set between what we already have and what we can afford. The easy solution by politicians was to push their power to the extreme when they saw no resistance. The hard choices of today were small choices 3 or more decades ago. The cumulative expansion of government powers, along with the polished craft of our politicians to promise everything to everyone resulted in an “event horizon” of critical mass. Nothing can now escape the inevitable conclusion.

    I believe a crisis of this magnitude will not just result in another great depression, but a surge of political change and a renewed strengthening of our messy democracy. In the end we will come out of this cycle stronger. Every crisis before us has catapulted us ever higher. Most will not be comforted by this notion since they themselves will have to endure the hardships without witnessing the positive results. I can only base my theory on the past. In all the prior boom/bust cycles the successive golden eras have always achieved higher results. Will this time be the end of that trend?

  • BigTom August 12, 2013, 4:23 pm

    RA – It is to early for me to go out for a deep pass on this subject this a.m. but I will go back to my favorite harping materials here….though the banksters were the obvious ‘trigger pullers’ in this whole sordid financial affair, we have all noticed no one of merit in the financial world is prosecuted for the myriad of laws broken here, and no one in the financial world except lone rogue traders go to jail. With the repeal of glass-steagall the door to this whole sordid affair was left wide open. Who did that? Got to ask your self, now who has oversight on the financial misdeeds going on in that world? Why has there not been accountability for all those misdeeds? Those standing behind the camera and those that stand in front of the camera all point fingers in the wrong direction. It is like watching the crowd in a tennis match while the game proceeds on center court without being noticed! There is a rule of law out there on the books that spells out what to do here. Why does no one point the finger at the sheriff for not enforcing that rule of law? Everyone just shrugs and points at the banksters, the wrong direction here, IMHO!
    And, IMHO, I doubt if the fingers will ever get pointed in the right direction…….

  • Formula382 August 12, 2013, 2:12 pm

    I find it interesting that so many want to blame someone or something for their problems. When did we stop being accountable for our own actions? Let’s analyze one example of how out of control the U.S. once was (and still is) with respect to consumption habbits. I’m going to use rough estimates but they’re close enough none the less. At the peak of the housing bubble, the median household income was in the 40K range nationwide, yet the median home value in the U.S. was north of 300K. I know this because I kept telling my wife, “honey, we’re living in a home that is right at the median” and we were both very surprised as we knew there was no way in Hell all of these soccer mom’s in Denali’s could afford the McMansions they were living in.

    But back to the math. If you consider the median income versus median home values it gives you all you need. At the end of the day, Americans as well as many other people from developed nations, have no self control when it comes to consumption. We’re addicted to spending and have no one to blame but ourselves. I would also argue that it’s easier today for a mother to stay home and raise her/their children however, parents are trading material possessions for this privilege and it’s truly sad. Today, people turn their children over to the “system” when their children are mere babies in stead of making small sacrifices in consumption behavior. Today, moms that have to work are quick to tell everyone “I could never stay home” blah blah blah. Well, kind of hard to make that claim when so many have not ever tried.

    I can go on and on however, my point is this. We have ourselves to blame as our lives are merely a reflection of the decisions we make. You can get ahead if you have a strong work ethic, exercise thrift and don’t expand your standard of living every time you get a raise or a bonus.

    • gary leibowitz August 12, 2013, 7:03 pm

      Pretty much how I see things. I too place blame on all of us, as human nature seems to revert to these patterns whenever complacency and apathy is the strongest. It seems to be a hard-wired genetic carryover of our short time as a species. We either mutate out of this behavior in time or more likely make our own genetic changes to ourselves. An amazing concept to be able to create/change your own species development. We are almost there.

    • VegasBob August 12, 2013, 9:20 pm

      While it is true that most of us have become financially irresponsible, it is also true that for the last 50 years we as a nation have been trained to look to government for a handout rather than taking individual initiative to solve our individual problems. And as a society, we have also been trained to be afraid of just about everything including our own shadows.

      I can’t tell you know many people I know in their late 50s and early 60s who are one check away from a bankruptcy filing and homelessness, but it’s a lot of people.

      Twice in my life I was laid off from work and was eligible to collect unemployment compensation. Both times I refused to file for unemployment or make any attempt to collect it.

      Strange as it may seem coming from someone who used to identify as a Democrat (as of now I think I’ve evolved into a Libertarian), I took care of my own problems without asking government for help.

    • mario cavolo August 13, 2013, 8:09 am

      As above, let me be friendly as I disagree; your lives are a reflection of the decision you make INSIDE a given society which is brainwashing you constantly.

      “When did we stop being accountable for our own actions?”

      You tell me? Here’s an example.

      Mary and John’s marriage is on the rocks. Where Mary and John live, in a really big room filled with 20,000 other couples, 60% of those couples are divorced.

      Hence, Mary and John, WILL find themselves influenced by the rationalizations of those divorced people and may themselves choose divorce rather than “making it work” til death do us part. Undoubtedly correct.

      But if the divorce rate was zero amongst those 20,000 married couples who faced the struggles of marriage, John and Mary would NEVER consider divorce. Undoubtedly correct.

      So, while I appreciate your idea that you are are supposedly free and individually responsible for your choices, you are in fact, not anywhere near as much as you wish to believe.

      Another example: In America, a driver, including me would never think to turn and drive through a crosswalk or driveway while people were crossing it in both directions. Such behavior is without a doubt deeply irresponsible, neglectful, dangerous, reckless, causing undo risk and on and on and on, punishable in many ways and it is ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!

      (please note I’m using CAPS to put the correct emphasis on the correct words, not to be an aggressive jerk)

      Nonsense, utter nonsense. I was also that driver in America, I would NEVER do that. But now I am a driver for over five years in China. EVERYONE does that and therefore I DO that. In fact, the people crossing the crosswalk EXPECT the cars to do that and every time I ever forget where I am and try to politely wait and ALLOW a 70 year grandmother with 3 year old grandchild in tow to cross as of course I SHOULD and MUST do, THEY get confused and wonder what the hell MY problem is.

      I am a product of the environment in which I live and slowly, insidiously, unconsciously, my behavior is modified to fit that society in many ways to their version of normal.

      3rd example, 90% of Americans buy their stuff on credit. In China, 90% don’t.

      So to speak, I have myself to blame? Its not right to blame complacency and apathy and feel guilty. That’s exactly what they want you to think, perfectly playing into the hands of those in control.

      VegasBob used the right word – trained.

      Cheers, Mario

  • Rich August 12, 2013, 8:27 am
  • VegasBob August 12, 2013, 7:28 am

    Even in 1977, when I was managing a small business, we once received 61 applications for a truck driver position that paid $150 a week at the time. So the destruction of the US economy has been ongoing for decades.

    I have to agree in part with John Jay. The seeds of our destruction were planted with the assassination of John F. Kennedy and came to fruition during the Johnson administration. In the absence of Kennedy’s assassination, LBJ would probably never have been President. It is doubtful that had Kennedy continued in office, he could have gotten away with the mass expansion of the Vietnam war or the expansion of the welfare state that LBJ called the “Great Society.” Those things happened because the nation was in shock over the Kennedy assassination for several years.

    Anyone with a grain of common sense could see that Vietnam was no more important to the security of the US than the man in the moon. And anyone with a grain of common sense could see that it would take no more than 2 or 3 generations of a citizenry raised on a culture of government dependence to destroy the country’s economy if not the country itself.

    I predicted it in my American History class as a junior in high school in 1968. I said it would take about 40 years to destroy the country’s economy and turn it into a socialist or welfare state dictatorship. My classmates laughed at me and thought I was nuts.

    Well, folks, exactly 40 years later, in 2008, the nation elected Barack Obama as President. And the ensuing 5 years have proved me absolutely correct.

    In the interest of full disclosure, I have to accept some blame for the 2008 election outcome, as I voted for Obama. However, I was not fooled by Obama a second time in 2012. And I will not be fooled by Hitlery Clinton in 2016.

    • John Jay August 12, 2013, 3:46 pm

      Vegas Bob,
      And the LBJ story was just as bad before he wound up as President in 1963.
      This is from the early 1950s:

      “Influential politicians, including Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson (D) of Texas and Sen. Pat McCarran (D) of Nevada, favored open borders, and were dead set against strong border enforcement, Brownell said. But General Swing’s close connections to the president shielded him – and the Border Patrol – from meddling by powerful political and corporate interests.”
      Link:http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0706/p09s01-coop.html

      “Powerful political and corporate interests”
      Sound familiar?
      Eisenhower held off the Big Business demand for cheap labor while he was in office.
      The sharks were already planning to savage the American worker right after WWII!
      When Ike was gone LBJ and his pals started the looting.
      The article that link takes you to explains how we got to this sad state of affairs.
      It’s not going to turn around now, those three rivers will keep right on rolling until they have scoured the USA right down to the bedrock.

  • Jill August 12, 2013, 5:54 am

    Actually, our education system is training twice as many people as can find jobs in science, tech, engineering, and math. Employers have gotten Congress to approve their bringing in workers from outside the country to take some of the jobs that would otherwise go to Americans– by pretending that no Americans are available who fit the exact job requirements. See article below.

    http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/2013/07/the-bogus-high-tech-worker-sho.html

    Rick, regarding a “media that panders to our lowliest aspirations and basest desires”, it certainly does. There is so much money to be made by pandering to people’s vices, that of course media folks are going to come along and scoop up all that cash.

    Perhaps some folks here have some ideas about how to turn that around, or help people to be less vulnerable to those catering to our vices. Because no one is going to stop selling rampant over-indebted consumerism to people on the TV, any more than people are going to stop selling porn on the Internet.

    You can’t simply say No to it though. Well, you can, but you have to say Yes to something. If over-indebted consumerism stops being the center of people’s lives, then something else will have to become that center.

  • John Jay August 12, 2013, 5:52 am

    Well, it was a complex series of events that brought us to this sad situation, and it unfolded over the past fifty years, slowly at first, and now much more rapidly.
    I would say that there were three huge rivers that have been busily eroding the country that anyone at least 50 years old remembers.

    The three rivers?
    Inflation, Big Government, and Big Business.
    These three rivers have many tributaries that intertwine and meander but they all have been working together to get the job done.

    Once again I will argue that the source of all three rivers was the LBJ administration.
    LBJ championed the Viet Nam war so his pals in the MIC could make billions on Warfare contracts.
    And his Welfare state began to reward and subsidize failure just to get votes.
    Since he did not dare raise taxes too much, he began to raid the SS funds and run deficits.
    That set the Inflation river in motion.

    So now Big Business was looking at big pay raises being demanded by workers.
    They did not like that.
    So the changed the Immigration laws in 1965, which led to Open Borders which has been flooding this nation with unneeded workers for five decades.
    And they began to ship manufacturing offshore and did away with protective tariffs.
    I think television manufacturing was the first to go.
    Which led to NAFTA, GATT, H1B etc.
    So with fewer jobs and endless new foreign workers we wound up where we are today.
    Where even minimum wage, part time jobs with no benefits draw millions of applicants.

    And lastly we have seen explosive growth in Government at every level for 50 years.
    Once again, they could not raise taxes to support it, so endless debt was created.
    So with the three rivers all working together you get the final result……………….Detroit.
    Bloated government payrolls and pensions, no private sector jobs, and an electorate of unemployable, illiterate thugs.
    And a landscape that looks like Dresden in 1945.

    This is a topic for a tome the size of Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall”
    But it would ideally have three volumes to cover each of the main causes.
    Volume 1: Inflation
    Volume 2: Big Government
    Volume 3: Big Business

    You can have chapters on the Government/Big Business attack on the old fashioned Nuclear Family, the war on Drugs, MSM Celebrity/Sports Worship, the rise of K Street etc.
    But those three Volumes above explain it all.
    A few Oligarchs took over the Government and engaged in nonstop looting for 50 years.
    There is very little left to steal now.
    Just look at Detroit to prove that point.
    Nothing left to steal there.

    • gary leibowitz August 18, 2013, 6:18 pm

      Commend you for trying to piece it all together.

      I question if LBJ’s involvement in Vietnam was really a planned for profit program and his stand on liberal issues a smoke screen. His background upbringing would differ from your assumptions.

      Where is your loose assumption on Big Business, immigration law changes and shipping jobs overseas connect? Wouldn’t cheap labor encourage business to stay here? The Civil Rights Act and Voting Act combined with the Immigration Act was a way to reverse the trend on discrimination.

      Wasn’t the 30’s a culmination of exactly the opposite path. No government involvement, robber barons controlling all jobs, no taxes for most of that era. No pensions, medical programs, safety net, unions in infancy. Small government, lax or no human rights laws, hard and long child labor, no mandatory schooling. In 1910 only 10 percent were high school graduates. Shot up to 40 percent in 1935.

      So now we have a breakdown from government greed and corruption happening at opposite extremes. Food for thought.

  • Troll August 12, 2013, 5:16 am

    Okay, so . . . Why do people “need” all these things? I grew up in an 850 square foot house with two siblings. Today, I am thinking 2500 square feet is the norm for a middle-class family. I never wanted for “space.” The space was there, all I had to do was look for it.

    My parents never had a new car. They never made payments on anything.

    I remember, like it was yesterday, when I was in grade five that our furnace broke down and we had to heat our home with a gas oven for a couple of months before my parents could purchase a new furnace.

    Were we poor? No . . . just the opposite, I had a lot of things kids in my neighborhood didn’t have. In fact, my family was considered, “well-to-do.”

    Today, why are people driving brand new SUV’s when they haven’t got two nickles to rub together?

    People are in hock today because they have become victims of peer pressure and advertising.

    I maintain if you are a home builder and can somehow convince people they don’t need a big house with zero yard, you’ll do very well.

    The economy doesn’t need $120,000 Hummers and convertible BMW’s which are no more capable of getting us from point A to B than a $1,000 moped.

    Our economy needs to produce things and the formula is simple:

    As it is, all we produce in the western economy are lawyers, stock brokers and accountants. Anyone with a lick of sense ought to realize that none of these people would have a job were it not for people who actually want to work and make and produce things — in our little quadrant of the world — that are not made in China or India.

    All our education system does — as it stands — is steer our kids away from making something for a living to being a whore to the “making something for a living,” system.

    And that is our system’s failure . . . We think we should all have white collar jobs while “someone else” does the real work.

    Just ask Detroit about that.

  • Jill August 12, 2013, 3:46 am

    My answer is Yes to all 3 of your questions. Since the Guvvament and media are controlled by the banksters and other crony capitalist welfare queens, these crony capitalists are the ultimate source of all 3 problems.

    • Rick Ackerman August 12, 2013, 4:56 am

      I’m hoping that you and others who participate in this discussion can go deeper than that, Jill, since the questions I have asked are truly vexing, at least to me. Another question I might have asked is whether we have been leached soulless by a media that panders to our lowliest aspirations and basest desires. Or is Capitalism itself to blame?

    • Jason S August 12, 2013, 8:12 pm

      Jill and Rick, I would say that it definitely isnt capitalism or even the bankers to blame (though they are a large symptom) but it is we who are to blame. We forget that we the consumer have a lot of power, and therefore we neglect using it, or unconsciously use it in ways that are hypocritical.

      We choose what we buy, who we elect, etc. We choose to buy cheaply made things from China from warehouse stores because we value quantity over quality. We choose to let bankers get away with what they do because as shareholders it is easier to shred the proxy than to investigate the companies issues and vote, or God forbid, work to create a voting block.

      We (myself included) have succumbed to the siren song of easy living and that doesnt leave me time to do these the detailed things sampled in the paragraph above and enjoy my video game, tv show, time-suck du jour.

      I think it is probably impractical to expect that we sacrifice all the time necessary to control things to a great extent, but I think we as sheeple need to accept a good portion of the responsibility for where we are today. Even the idea of seduction of bread and circuses makes it sound like we were tricked into this; I think our laziness is more willing than that.

      We claim that we dont like Walmart, Home Depot, etc. running our small businesses out of business, that we want a third political party, that we value integrity but I contend that actions speak louder and I don’t see much of a concerted effort made to change much.

    • mario cavolo August 13, 2013, 7:53 am

      Hi Jason,

      In a friendly manner let me disagree with your point of view and state why.

      A society influences the behavior of its people; that’s the institutions which create the atmosphere in which they live. They don’t really have a choice, though they like to think they do. What is perfectly “normal” behavior in one country or era is the opposite of someone else’s perfectly “normal” behavior in another country or era in time.

      You go to Walmart because its there and you are steered toward it. You are a fish in their ocean, subject to the pressures they put upon you and then are forced to respond.

      You like mom and pop shops, but you can’t afford to go to them anymore, along comes Walmart, you go there instead. You follow as the society shapes the environment, you have very little control over being able to shape that macro environment, like it or not, including who you vote for. Your vote is into an electoral system that is deeply and unfortunately self-serving though they do everything in their power to make you think that is not the case.

      A concerted effort to change much in the face of such societal pressures driven by the govt/institutions/media running the show is spitting into the wind. Yes you might get some favorable results, but you’re fighting against the grain, a very difficult thing to do.

      Cheers, Mario